June 30, 2010

Um so Jamiroquai has what to do with noodles and polystyrene? Who cares? Throw a few Japanese lyrics in at the end of the CM!

Bah. Youtube is bragging that Boingboing already featured this. I'm the only person on earth that doesn't read that blog. So this post, like all of them, are for the biggest market share of my readership (my own two eyes).

You thought bringing that song back to pimp noodles was odd? Try an 19th century book. From the 80s CM vault, I give you Tom Sawyer, who I didn't even know made it across the cultural divide.

In my the dim recesses of my memory as an 80s child, I can recall the awesome horror that was Unico and the Island of Magic. I especially remember the people being turned into brick-dolls and enduring a fate worse than death as living walls.

Unico is a creation of the grandfather of manga, Osamu Tezuka. Enjoy this playlist, if you dare!

June 27, 2010

Don't worry Susan Boyle, Kimutaku will protect you from the abstract jokes!

So during my first (and so far only!) trip back to America, I convinced my friend that we needed to go to a karaoke bar. We were in the north of Denver on a snowy night and Google maps directed us to a nearby one in a strip mall. The decor and customers were rather country, but heedless of this I chose to sing Sukiyaki. It was a song I was well familiar with, but the lyrics on the display came out in romaji, which really threw me off. I gave a horrid performance and half expected a cowboy to punch me.

Later in the night I did Mr. Roboto which went over a lot better. Someone even shook my hand after that one. The moral of the story is: Know Thy Audience. Wait, saying it all in King James English makes "know" sound a little biblical. I cannot vouch for the effectiveness of knowing your audience in the biblical way. What? Oh, I'm getting the wave from my producer to move on with the rest of the post.

Here we have a French version of Ameribrittania's Got Idolatrous Talent. The singer has daringly decided to go with the theme song to an anime. Let's see how it goes.

Now here's the original, which you can practice and sing freely if you live in Japan. You can see how environment makes all the difference when Franco-America Wants to Marry an Millionare man is mashed up with it:

June 24, 2010

Okay that title is horrible, because it's fish that get away, but let's ignore that and carry on.

See the deer in this image? This is from a Japanese card game called hanafuda. The deer (shika) shows up on the card for the tenth (tou) month, and from the we got shikatou (鹿十） which went through a phonetic change to shikato (シカト) over the years.

Now, you already know this if you can also read the description on the image, but shikato means to ignore something, because the deer looks like it is turning it's head away. More accurately, it seems to be used like snub in English.

You may have also caught that this was a "chivalrous" word. Yeah, in Japan, chivalry is something a romantic yakuza would use, so this was once underworld slang. Gogen says it was gamblers' cant. That's not really surprising, as hanafuda have a long history of being used in yakuza gambling dens. The zokugojiten says it spread throughout the delinquent world, until everyone was using it.

Finally, it seems to be a good word to use for being turned down when you are out nampaing, as this YouTube video shows:

So it is neither deer nor fish, but the birds that get away. Unless you are a dog. Wanna 'nother animal in this post? Get this, since the crane (tsuru) on the first (ichi) month's card is also turning away, sometimes tsuruichi is substituted for shikato, but only by someone that is probably making a mistake as a joke.

Usage examples I found and took a stab at glossing:

しかとうとぼける [old example] gloss: turn one's head, whistle a little tune, and play dumb.しかとしよう gloss: Forget about that creep.しかとかよ gloss: Hey, who do you think you are ignoring?!しかとすんなよ gloss: Don't you walk away from me!ツルイチされた! gloss: I had an endearing conversation with the hand.

June 13, 2010

Think you are hot stuff in the karaoke box? Try singing custom lyrics to a favorite tune then. This youtuber is constantly localizing lyrics into his native nipponese. I can't wait for him to take on Rock Me Amadeus. Anyways, even if you don't plan to sing, this Dancing Queen cover is a nice little way to study the language.

June 8, 2010

Before Jero made all the old ladies' cheeks wet, Kiyoshi Hikawa was doing the job with panache, but let's face it: Enka is a dying art form. We need you, brave men and women of THR Karaoke posts, to pick up the slack! Practice this song, and soon you will have all the old ladies shouting out your name just like in this video (seriously, listen for "KI-YO-SHI!" from the crowd in this thing).

June 3, 2010

Thought I would dust off a few pics from my old town that I found bizarre or amusing. One or two of these are not region-specific though.

What happens when comic characters get real and less blonde.

合格エナジー Energy to pass. エネルギ is the usual word for energy though, as the Japanese took in the German word for energy long ago. Curious, is there a shift going on?

熊谷はどうなる？ What will happen to Kumagaya? 熊谷の破綻を食い止めろ Put Kumagaya's bankruptcy into check! 熊谷発 日本沈没 Starting with Kumagaya, Japan with be sunk.Hmmm, Kumagaya sounds pretty important. What's that you say? Just a gimmick? Oh.

おいしい穴新発売 The debut of the delicious hole.A donut burger? Where's the beef?!

The only 1000￥ (about 10 dollars) store I've seen so far.Ahhh, nostalgia, thy name be... overpriced hipster clothes? Well, I do have a bit of a bigger budget these days as my family died of dysentery...

June 1, 2010

Toy Story 3 is coming out soon I hear (I'm not clear on these things, they just pop up in my iMac's previews).

Somebody made one of the characters from the movie seem real with a fake commercial allegedly from 1983. They've even gone as far as to make a Japanese version, but the ruse becomes evident for me when I see their cartoon shot in this video. 1980s anime didn't look like that at all. Still, interesting promotion campaign.